April 1, 2011

Rockof

circa early1900’s

Ages

The rock outside of Humphrey Center has been a landmark of Grand View

pride after being dug up more than a hundred years ago. The rock was unearthed during the construction of the Humphrey Center, which was completed in 1904.

According to the Grand View website, the rock has been painted by stu-dents and faculty since 1915. Often the maintenance staff will help students in paint-ing, or simply by providing the materials such as the paint or brushes.

“It’s basically a billboard,” Kim Butler, director of buildings and grounds at Grand View said. “It’s a different version of a billboard, but it works pretty well.”

Butler has been painting the rock since she was a student, and remembers painting it for her boss.

It said ‘Hubert you’ve lost control,’ and ‘happy birthday, Hubert,”

“Students are able to paint whatever they like on the rock, providing it’s message is clean enough for the Lutheran University,” Butler said. “We’ve welcomed presidents from Tom Thompson, to Art Puotinen, to Kent Henning.”

“Five marriage proposals have also been made using the rock,” Butler said.

To paint the rock, students can start by calling the mainte-nance staff. Butler has experience and is willing to help out by either painting, priming the rock with a solid color, or often by provid-ing the materials like paint and brushes.

Recently the dance team painted the rock to welcome the

Danish gymnastics team to the campus.

“We were trying to decorate campus with the limited funds we were given,” said Becky White, junior graphic design major, said. “And painting the rock was one of the things.”

To welcome the team, the dance crew painted the Danish flag and “Velkommen,” the Danish word for welcome.

Another group had want-ed to paint the rock, but

agreed to wait until the Danish team had left.

“It’s fun to leave a mark on campus, but not get in trou-ble for it,” White said. “It’s a good freedom of speech deal, having your own billboard.

When I first came to Grand View I had

no idea what people were talking about,’ like you guys have a rock? That’s cool I guess.’ But, as you get used to it, it’s like part of cam-pus and it is pretty cool.”

Butler estimates the rock gets painted 40 to 50 times a year, mostly during the summer months.

“Over time, the rock’s weight causes it to sink backwards into the ground,” Butler said. “The face of it used to be a little more upright so you can see better from the road. We had it raised with a crane; I want to say like 15 years ago.”

The rock has become a reflec-tion of life at Grand View.

“It’s a positive thing, and it talks about all the events you can have on campus,” Butler said. “It follows the school year, and we kind of know when people are going to call us to paint the rock. The Homecomings we know, the end of the school year the seniors maybe would want their pictures taken [with it].”

As advice to future students, Butler said to watch the weather for rain so there is plenty of time for paint to dry.

HERITAGE101

The Rock

First president

Tuition

Danish foundation

Traditions

How well do you know your school’s history?

Grand View was founded in 1896 by Danish immigrants.

Grand View is the only Danish-Lutheran college left in America.

A game of hide-and-seek Bud the Bird began in 1933when students buried the statue of the bald eagle.

Grand View’s first president was Benedict Nordentoft.

The traditional Danish celebration called Julefest is celebrated at Christmas time every year on campus.

When Grand View was founded, tuition, room and board $30.

The Rock is said to have first appeared in 1902.

The Rock’s original location was directly in front of the door to Old

Jason LinkSTAFF WRITER

Rock holds rich tradition

Layout by Stephanie Daggett